Of course we do not mean to defend all the measures of the
Houses. Far from it. There never was a perfect man. It would,
therefore, be the height of absurdity to expect a perfect party
or a perfect assembly. For large bodies are far more likely to
err than individuals. The passions are inflamed by sympathy; the
fear of punishment and the sense of shame are diminished by
partition. Every day we see men do for their faction what they
would die rather than do for themselves.

Scarcely any private quarrel ever happens, in which the right and
wrong are so exquisitely divided that all the right lies on one
side, and all the wrong on the other. But here was a schism which
separated a great nation into two parties. Of these parties, each
was composed of many smaller parties. Each contained many
members, who differed far less from their moderate opponents than
from their violent allies. Each reckoned among its supporters
many who were determined in their choice by some accident of
birth, of connection, or of local situation. Each of them
attracted to itself in multitudes those fierce and turbid
spirits, to whom the clouds and whirlwinds of the political
hurricane are the atmosphere of life. A party, like a camp, has
its sutlers and camp-followers, as well as its soldiers. In its
progress it collects round it a vast retinue, composed of people
who thrive by its custom or are amused by its display, who may be
sometimes reckoned, in an ostentatious enumeration, as forming a
part of it, but who give no aid to its operations, and take but a
languid interest in its success, who relax its discipline and
dishonour its flag by their irregularities, and who, after a
disaster, are perfectly ready to cut the throats and rifle the
baggage of their companions.